Macbook Pro Power Button Woes

I own a late 2008 15" Macbok Pro (with removable battery) which is out of warranty.

This morning I awoke to find my computer running extremely slowly, but otherwise working. I decided to reboot it (by selecting "shutdown" from the apple menu), however I got impatient and decided to force a shutdown by holding the power button (I know, I know, bad habit), strangely the computer did not respond to the power button being held. Eventually, the computer turned off as a result of the initial shutdown command. When I tried to reboot it, I got no response from the power button whatsoever. Normally, I'd be really concerned about this, but since the didn't respond to the power button when the computer was on, I'm hoping that this is just a problem with the power button's connection.